Security Guard And The Employee example essay topic

1,515 words
Critical Thinking Styles 2 Critical Thinking Styles and Forces of Influence Everybody lives in a world of daily routine. The routine of getting up in the morning and going to work everyday are for the most part is an everyday routine for everybody. Just as any business organizations have their own daily routine. They start business operations early in the morning and close down at the end of the day. To the average employees they do not have anything to worry about their work after leaving their offices. However, something else continues to operate when everybody left for the day.

At the end of the day, the security department continues to monitor the building security throughout the night. On a typical situation, this is for the most is the daily routine in a business organization. However, how really secure the buildings are at the end of the business hours? One of the major problems with any business organizations today is security. In fact, a security breach happened with Lowest fare. com, a leading travel company. A totally, unexpected burglary incident happened at the corporate office one evening.

On a typical day, employees would come in to the rear of the building using their badges to open the door. There are two other entrances in the front of the building: one, the main entrance door that is manned by a security guard, and the other- entrance to the executive offices that is regularly checked by the security guard throughout the night. At the end of the business day, the security guard locks and secures both front entrance doors, and employees that leave the building through the executive's entrance late in the evening closes and locks the door after them ensuring that it is secured. Throughout the night, the security guard checks all the doors to ensure the building is secure. The guard stays inside the main front entrance and monitors the building with security Critical Thinking Styles 3 cameras placed strategically in and around the building complex. One evening, a burglar managed to get inside the building in the executives office area, and took numerous personal computers and airline ticket stocks.

In spite of the established security measures, the burglar was able to get in and out of the building without being caught by the security guard. The robbery was not discovered until the following morning when one of the staff came early that morning and found out the office equipment were gone. An investigation of the incident was conducted, and all employees that left after business hours on that day were questioned. Each of those employees was interrogated in a secluded room, and the staff ensured that they were not able to talk to each other to discuss anything about the incident. The investigation revealed that not one of the employees knew anything or had any involvement with the incident. The question on security measures then came up, and an evaluation of the procedures was initiated.

The evaluation revealed that both the guard and the last employee that left building that day made a mistake. The employee did not check the door to ensure that it was locked and secured upon leaving the building, and the guard did not perform the regular security check that he was supposed to do throughout the evening during his tour of duty. The incident should have never happened if both the security guard and the employee followed security procedures. The guard was relieved from his duty, and the employee, well, she is still employed.

Since she was one of the executives, it was never revealed whether she was reprimanded or not for the incident. Critical Thinking Styles 4 With the outcome of the investigation, the security strategy of the company was reassess and identified areas of weakness to ensure that such security breach would not happen again. First, detection: the company operates with a minimal intrusion-detection system so additional security guards were hired to rove in and around the building complex to stop or question anyone who's not an employee of the company. Door alarms were installed so that any employees leaving after business hours would only exit through the main entrance door and check out with the guard upon leaving. Second, identification: more restrict checking of Identification badges was enforced and all employees must wear their badges at all times while they are on duty. Visitors must sign in and out at the reception desk and must be accompanied by a personnel from the section visited.

Third, follow-up: security incidents could always be traced to a series of failures in policies, procedures, technologies, and people (Barrish, 2001). To move forward, companies must break the chain of circumstances that allow such incident to recur (Barrish, 2001). By having a detailed report of the incident and distribute it to executives, managers, and employees, lessons learned can result in corrective actions that will strengthen the organization's security. The management became proactive by informing the employees, clients, and suppliers about what had transpired. Regular security awareness training was conducted for all employees to make them aware and report any suspicious acts or suspicious individual to the security section. Since the incident involved computer theft, the company's information technology system security was also reassessed.

The security strategy was evaluated ensuring that in the event of such incident, sensitive information such as company's financial revenues, Critical Thinking Styles 5 financial status, and employee's personal information is not accessible if the computer hardware and software are stolen. The critical thinking used by the management in investigating this problem was "Deductive Logic" (Wikipedia, n. d. ). With the interrogation process, the management was able to get information and evidence from the employees and the guard to find out the cause of the problem.

Evaluation of the security procedures also identified faults in the established procedures. The management including the employees were made aware of security measures and are now better prepared to detect possible security breach in or outside the company's property. Although the security breach is not an on-going problem in the company, it was influenced by the ethics of the guard and the employee. The employee assumed that the guard will check the security of the building regardless of whether she checks it or not, and the guard for being so used to the routine and assumed that any executive would be responsible enough to ensure that the building is secured when is or she leaves for the day. One of the other forces that might have influenced the problem was the employee's economic status. Since she was one of the executives, she might have felt that she was to good for the simple task, and the reason why the company hired security guard was just for this purpose.

Her economic status, as one of the executives, also influenced why she was not relieved from her job. On a normal situation, if a regular employee made the same mistake on this type of situation, they would have been terminated from their job just as the security guard was relieved from his duty. Critical Thinking Styles 6 In spite of this dilemma, the daily routine must go on and the business must continue to operate. The difference on economic status between the executive and the guard was not a factor for him getting relieved from his duty according to the human resources.

They further explained that the guard had prior incident reports from his previous assignments. This incident was his final mistake that led to the decision of the management to relieve him from his duties. The rumor of "rank has its privilege" escalated to the upper management level (Crew, n. d. ).

The management decided to put stop to the gossip so they created an organized section meetings chaired by the company chief executive officer. In the meeting, the decision of terminating the guard and keeping the executive were further explained in detail. All the employees were given the chance to voice their opinions and concerns in person with the chief executive officer. All employee issues and concerns were recorded during the meeting, and were promised that they will be reviewed and appropriate corrective action or resolution would be taken if necessary. This action by the chief executive officer was a good decision made by him because it relieved the tensions and the pressures building up within the organization. The employees now have a better understanding if not persuaded of the decisions made by the management.

Definitely, there would always be differences and forces of influences that would affect the problem. However, with critical thinking and proper decision-making, this obstacle in an organization is remedied if not completely resolved.